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TheBookFrog

The Book Frog

Books. Book reviews. Bookish thoughts. Living a bookish life. Life in the bookstore.

Thicker Than Water: A Felix Castor Novel

Thicker Than Water - Mike Carey Mike Carey's Felix "Fix" Castor series is one that is maturing nicely. In Thicker Than Water, Fix's fourth outing, he finds himself--much against his will--thrust back into his own past, dredging up memories he'd just as soon remained submerged and forcing a deeper examination of his own ghosts than he'd prefer. DS Gary Coldwell, Fix's sometimes grudging friend and ally on the police force, awakens him in the middle of the night to call him in to do a reading at a crime scene. After his heart rate evens out Fix is relieved; just weeks before he and Juliet had quite literally stolen their friend Rafael Ditko--who is also the vessel barely containing the powerful demon Asmodeus--out from under the nose of the nefarious Professor Jenna-Jane Mulbridge, who conducts questionable experiments on the dead, the undead, and the possessed. What a relief, then, that Coldwell's pounding on his door is not to investigate that crime. That relief, however, is short-lived, for when they arrive at the crime scene Fix discovers that not only is the victim, Kenny Seddon, someone he knows--a bully from his childhood on the estate he grew up in back in Liverpool--but that Kenny has apparently scrawled Fix's name, in his own blood, across the inside windshield of the car in which he's found stabbed and slashed almost to the point of death. Oh bother. The ensuing action--in which Fix is, for the most part, a semi-fugitive, as he's sorta kinda been implicated in the crime--takes him back to Liverpool (a journey he has no interest in making, and even dreads), where he must face some of his own personal (albeit, thankfully, figurative) demons. Mike Carey has done a nice job of developing his characters over the course of this series. In this book, in addition to further glimpses into Juliet's transformation into a more human being, we also gain great insight into the character of Matt, Fix's brother, who is a Catholic priest. The end is a true cliff-hanger, leaving us only with the knowledge that the next book will be fully (and finally!) about Rafi Ditko and his personal (literal, I fear) demon, Asmodeus. I can't wait!